


The Kids To His Papa Man

by Gemini_Baby



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Brother Feels, Bruce Wayne Tries to Be a Good Parent, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Family, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Found Family, Gen, Humor, Jason Todd is Bruce Wayne's Inner Voice, Jason Todd is Bruce Wayne’s Inner Thoughts Voice, This kind of breaks the fourth wall?, We Rise Like Jason Todd, YeetDC2020, also, he isn't the best but he's trying, no one can tell me other wise, or maybe it doesn't, teeny tiny angst, what do fics not beta read and Jason have in common, yeah that, you get it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23718430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gemini_Baby/pseuds/Gemini_Baby
Summary: Being bored and tired, Bruce logs onto a site with lots and lots of fics and works. Little did he know what he was getting himself into.ORBruce reads fanfic...
Relationships: Bruce Wayne & His Kids, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 16
Kudos: 175





	The Kids To His Papa Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> For my friend, Syn 💞 
> 
> Hope you like it

It is a fact universally acknowledged that when a man is a father of a lot of children, he must be wishing to stay home and cuddle said children.

And not be continents away from home not doing the said thing. But alas!

Here Bruce was. In a different country, a different continent and in a totally different time zone. Miles away from home. In a hotel, contemplating his life decisions. He was here for a whole week to attend some annual global entrepreneurs conference.

Today was the third day of the event and Bruce was already feeling exhaustion deep in his bones. He was not looking forward to the remaining four days of hours of the event full of back-to-back conference and seminars. He wanted the week to end already.

Bruce was feeling very tired. He had already napped in the afternoon. And sleep was very very far away right now. 

_You are growing old, Old Man._

  
  


He had been thinking about his children while changing sides, on the hotel bed, for an hour. He had already talked with them in the morning and didn’t want to disturb them when it would be so early there.

_Dad is missing his kids. Dad is missing his kids. Na Na Na PapaMan…. NaNaNa PapaaaaMaaan…._

  
  


This business trip is for a whole week and it is already tiring him out. It doesn’t help that he’s in a different time zone right now and can’t call them whenever he wants. He can if he really wants to or need something but he knows he shouldn’t. Not in this hour. They need some rest too. And some of them would be busy patrolling and doing the extra work because of his absence.

  
  


He had to leave for the trip in a hurry as the venue was changed last minute for the meeting with entrepreneurs, all of them coming from all over the world. He had wanted to bring his kids with him. But he couldn’t.

  
  


Tim needed a lot of rest and Bruce had to leave him behind. He had asked to come with him but Bruce was aware that if Tim came with him, he would start doing the office work instead of getting some well-needed rest. It broke his heart when he said “no” and the look at his child’s face was breaking Bruce’s heart. As much sad as he may feel because of his decision, he doesn’t want to grow his business at the price of becoming a bad father.

_Baby Timbers gets all of Dad’s love._

  
  


Damian’s paperwork was not fully completed and they didn’t have a passport for him.

_Too bad little finger-sized baby_

  
  


Dick’s passport had expired. And Bruce had to leave Dick in charge of all of them in his absence. 

_Oh to be Dickiebird, the eldest and always be left behind, despite being a big baby, to babysit_

  
  


Jason was back in the family but not in the public eye. His paperwork was taking a lot of time to get him legally resurrected. Granted, Bruce could bring him with a fake id and a getup but he didn’t want his son to explain to every other person who he was and why he was here and give them his story and answer to a lot of endless queries.

_Didn’t think you would miss me, Dad._

  
  


He is missing all of them. Maybe a family trip to somewhere, next month. That sounds good. Him and his kids on a week-long vacation and on a break from work. That would be some nice way to bond.

_Growing soft, Bruce?_

  
  


Unable to think of anything else to do, he picks up his mobile and logs in to a website Clark introduced him to some time ago. There are millions of fanfics and some original works on the website available to anyone, who wants to read, for free. There are works of the length of a novel and _not asking for anything in return._

Bruce can see why Clark recommended the website to him. Clark, himself, finds the gen rating stories with fluff and reads them to Jon, sometimes.

_And when asked, you will still deny him being your best friend. Shaking my head, Bruce._

Bruce goes to the original works tag. Then he clicks on the “filters” option. This time he opens the exclude option and excludes all the works with warnings and works with shippy stuff. No Sir. He doesn’t want to come across a superbat fanfic with E ratings and whatnot _again_. He has already been traumatized before. No more.

(And if Tim had written a couple of those kinds of stories in order to practice the assigned creative writing and Bruce had found out, Tim doesn’t need to know about that. No need to make his second youngest feel embarrassed and avoid eye contact with his father for a year.)

_You love Timbo too much._

  
  


He selects the language, “English” and filters the works some more.

_Aren’t you a polyglot, Bruce?_

  
  


Scrolling, he tries looking for a work which would catch his attention. His brain is not ready for 100 k words multi-chaptered works though. He filters the word count too, this time. Satisfied, he resumes what he was doing.

He randomly clicks on the 3rd or 4th work in the result not paying any attention to the title, author or any of the tags. How bad could it be to not pay any mind to it and ignore them? He was going to read a fictional work, not going to have a duel to the death with Bane and Killer Croc at the same time.

_Aw Bruce. You are having some favourite rogues there._

  
  


He was Batman. He didn’t fear people. He instilled fear in people. A fictional work was not going to give him an almost heart attack.

 _“How bad could it be?”,_ he muttered to himself. 

That thought would come later to bite him because…...famous last words.

  
  


When he thought bad, it wasn’t that he was thinking about the quality or criticizing what people did for fun, as a hobby. Bruce isn’t a jerk. He merely didn’t want to read anything explicit or romantic work featuring him with _Hal, of all people._

_And wonderbat is fine?_

He didn’t say that. He only meant that these things are awkward for him and he feels uncomfortable because of them.

On the top of the story, there is an author’s note. He speed reads the author’s note on the work which says, **_“Hey guys. I am not a writer exactly. I am writing this as a way to cope right now. And some scenes may seem abrupt. And some tenses might not be correct. I may get back to do some edits and changes to make it more coherent when I am feeling better. But right now, we have to do with this. Please don’t kill me.”_ **

Bruce raises an eyebrow. _Do people kill authors over….tenses and incomplete scenes?_

_“You are so clueless sometimes about little things, old man”_

  
  


That suspiciously sounds like Jason in his head.

_“Love you too, Dad.”_

He’s really missing his second eldest kid the most. He would have brought him with him on this trip and have some time together with him. But sometimes luck is not in Bruce’s favour.

_“Having feels right now, Dad?”_

  
  


He takes a deep breath.

  
  


He starts reading. He would text his sons after some hours. 

  
  


There are some cute banters and sibling dynamics in the story. He had wanted a distraction. Something to stop him from calling all his kids at 4 am when they might be sleeping, for once. This story helps and doesn’t help him in this matter at the same time. 

_Oh to B or not to B_

_Yup. It’s a pun on your name, B._

  
  


The story is something about some children left behind by their parental figure and annoyed at the parent’s decision to leave them behind. They are some rich kids living in a big house. They are missing their parental figure too much. They also have become bored because the week isn’t ending yet and bored out of their mind, they have started to annoy each other.

  
  


Further in the storyline, some pranks wars have started. The two youngest siblings are doing more and more ridiculous things to outdo each other. One of them messes with the coffee machine and in response to it, the other one messes with the tea kettle. One of them makes popcorn for himself and the other one adds sugar in it. As payback, the sweet popcorn victim adds a hair dye in the shampoo. 

One of them makes all the art program softwares crash in the other’s device in response to the _loudest alarm ever rung, for a whole fifteen minutes, at 3 AM._

The eldest kid left in charge of other kids is on the edge of losing his sanity. 

All the pranks start getting more and more ridiculous. The antics of the brothers put a smile on Bruce’s face and he vaguely thinks that their antics remind him of his own two youngest kids.

  
  


He continues reading.

  
  


Bruce does not know what else to do other than reading the story that he even reads all the comments and the replies on the chapter after reading the chapter.

If his estimate is right, the writer is American judging by the time shown on his replies.

_Don’t judge writers by the time, Old Man._

Why should he not though? This was all in all a fair assumption he had made.

_Writers don’t sleep. They only cry and wish and dream for the day their WIPS would write themselves._

Huh? What?

Bruce shakes his head and starts reading the comments. 

  
  


Apparently most of the commenters think all the pranks the siblings in the story are coming up with are too far fetched and one or two of them have demanded that the story should be tagged as "Crack" rather than "inspired by the IRL events" because it had somehow misled them and they had clicked on this work.

_That's not a nice thing to demand things like that. Some people are just being rude. They could have just asked nicely. The story could be actually inspired by the real life events of the writer. Besides the writer had already said that writing this is their way of coping. They are writing this for themself, not others._

Bruce doesn't think of anything as far fetched or imaginary in the story. He's too used to his kids' antics at this point. Very few things surprise him anymore.

_Yet you were surprised by Timbo's showgirl wings costume and Damian's plans for a glittery Discowing and Batman mashup uniform for the future._

Bruce grunts. 

_Of course, you grunt, Old Man._

Okay. He does sometimes get surprised but not on that many occasions.

_What about that time when Dick ate all the cereal from the box directly and drank a full bowl of milk immediately after that?_

_What about that time your mini smoke bomb got replaced with Stephanie's glitter smoke bomb? And a purple glittery caped Batman was patrolling the whole Gotham without knowing the reason behind why all the rogues were losing it? When you were Oblivious and couldn't figure out why arresting the rogues had become suddenly 5x easier?_

That was one time. 

_And that time when Cass practised tying a bow on the cowl's ears? You wore the uniform without looking at it that time and a batman with pink bows on each of the cowl's ears was roaming the streets of Crime Alley._

Bruce accepts the defeat. His kids always outdo themselves. (Bruce is very proud.) 

_Aw Bruce._

_But you know you should go patrolling as purple glittery Batman more often._

Bruce groans. He knows he is old, okay? Don't remind him again. Let him groan. He already has had a crisis in the morning while washing his hair when he found strands of his hairs greying. 

_Aw Geez Ol- Bruce._

_You know maybe we can match?._

Bruce hums. 

He's on the last updated chapter right now. If he's being honest, he would love to read more of the story.

This chapter is a lot longer than others. As he continues reading, his heart is doing a weird thing. He doesn't know how to describe it. But it's a feeling like when one is going to learn something bad but hasn't learned about something particularly bad yet. A gut feeling? Heart running per mile in a minute? 

_Your heart is competing in a horse racing competition?_

Was that a thought? He's really out of his element right now. There's too much uncertainty he is feeling right now. He hates not knowing. He knows something is happening but what? 

He takes a deep breath again and resumes reading. 

The big house where the characters resided came very near to being burnt to the ground. Though thankfully, the tragedy was avoided in the last minute. 

There's a lot of sugar consumption happening throughout the story. 

Someone in the story drinks coffee like people drink water. "Just like Tim sometimes does." Bruce chuckles to himself. 

One of them loves to paint too much but has run out of all the sketchbooks. “This reminds me of Damian.” But they have started to paint and doodle on the walls of the big house right now. 

"Poor parental guardian. I don't know how they would react whenever they return. But seriously, why did they leave all the kids back at home in the first place? Why not be a good parent and either stay with them or take all of the kids with them wherever they have gone themselves.” 

_Just wondering who gave you the "WGD" title…_

That was a completely unrelated thought. It's not like the story's incidents and the origin of his "Detective" title are related in any way. 

  
  


In some places, there is mention of how they are all doomed when the guardian returns. How it's going to have a lot of consequences. 

Bruce frowns. “Granted the children have been doing some pranking and may have messed with one or two walls of the house, all of them are innocent children. Such innocent, cute kids and balls of sunshine. Their guardian must be a heartless man devoid of any emotions if he’s going to punish children for some pranks done out of boredom. Besides, they were cruel in leaving the kids behind, in the first place. _I mean who does that?”_

_I wonder too….._

  
  


As the end of the chapter starts nearing, the strange feeling in Bruce’s heart starts increasing. Just when Bruce tells himself that this might just be because of the exhaustion and nothing else, there’s a paragraph staring back at him. The narrator, too tired of things and lack of sleep, climbs on a chandelier. But since he’s already running on low luck, the chandelier crashes. Though somehow the narrator avoids any potential harmful injuries, the chandelier crashes to the floor. 

“This oddly reminds me of Dick.”

After a couple of seconds, when his own words sink in, the strange feeling settles deeper into his gut. Clawing inside and outside at the same time. His brain and heart are suddenly at a war, an absurd war.

Bruce has a feeling, now, about where this is going but that doesn’t mean that he is not deep down wishing that it doesn’t go there.

_Breathe, Dad. Take some deep breaths._

And Bruce does just that. He takes some deep breaths. 

The last chapter has ended. Confused about how to proceed, he refreshes the page. Turns out that the writer just updated another chapter only a couple of minutes ago. A thought crosses his brain. He chooses to act upon it. Maybe his nerves would be calmed and his worries soothed after this.

So Bruce Wayne, The World’s Greatest Detective, The Dark Knight, reads the tags on the fic, at last.

_After reading the whole 15 chapters, you think of checking out what things are tagged in it??? Seriously???? Shaking my head?_

Shaking what now?

Lost at what to react to the thought which he doesn’t understand, he starts reading the tags.

The fic is tagged with some warnings too. Was he so out of it that he never once checked the warnings?

Better check out what the warnings are.

Apparently, one of the warnings tagged is:

**Major Chandelier Death**

Bruce gulps.

_Had you read the warning before, Bruce, you wouldn’t have had an almost panic attack when that chandelier fell to his death and the guy got lucky._

It was not a panic attack. Nor an almost panic attack.

_Sure, Bruce, Sure. You definitely didn’t almost scream, “Dick, Chum, you okay?”_

Ignoring the thought, he proceeds to read the other warnings.

**Graphic Descriptions of Leg Pulling**

Uh, what. That explains some of the too much detailed information about the two brothers pulling each other's legs but it still doesn’t explain anything.

The next warning is:

**"Explicit details of house destruction"**

Bruce sighs. Had he read it before, he wouldn’t have had a second-hand panic on the parent’s behalf.

Bruce braces himself for other tags.

The tag is **PWP.**

He gulps. Bruce knows what PWP means thanks to some batlantern fics. He sighs again.

The full form of PWP is given in the next tag which happens to be **"pranking without plot"**. He sighs again. This time, it is a sigh of relief. He wasn’t looking forward to other chapters if the full form had been...ahem.

The last warning is in two tags which are: 

**graphic mention of sugar consumption**

**warning: sugar abuse**

Well, that explains so much sugar consumption.

_Gotta love those tags though, Bruce_

One of the tags is **“I wrote this instead of babysitting.”**

Another tag is, **“Unrequited babysitter respect.”**

He reads the title of the work. This is a sort of embarrassing thing that he never paid any attention to the title and didn’t pay any mind to the tags. The title of the work is “Of birds and boys”

How are boys and birds related to this story? Sure, it is featuring boys but birds?

He’s confused.

Just at that moment, he sees the author’s name.

Gravity_Defier.

The author’s name is Gravity_Defier.

Phew. Nothing like he feared.

_Mmmm….. Who do we know who regularly defies gravity….??_

“Dick”

The answer on his tongue without even thinking.

The realization of the word he has just spoken sinks in.

He sees the name again.

And _the name Gravity_defier is staring back at him._

The realization becomes more haunting when he remembers his words from earlier.

When he had read about the coffee habit of one of them, he had chuckled to himself saying, "Just like Tim sometimes does." 

When he had read about the passion for painting one of them had and had said, “This reminds me of Damian”, when the boy had run out of sketchbooks and had started to paint and doodle on the walls of the big house.

  
  


Wait. The boy painted directly on the walls of the big house.

The story is also tagged with “Explicit details of house destruction”. 

  
  


The….the big house _is_ the manor. Oh no.

Dick might be the one writing this story…….

  
  


He is Batman. He doesn’t make assumptions though. This all feeling might only be a mere hunch or his brain playing some sort of game. Maybe some residue of fear gas left in him?

He opens the bat tech app on his mobile. And tracks the IP location of the writer.

_That’s creepy. Is doing this thing even allowed? So this is where Lil Timmy got the stalking habit from. No wonder he has taken after you._

  
  


Bruce checks. Double checks. Triple checks.

The result is the same.

It was not a mere hunch.

Dick is the one who’s writing the story featuring himself and his brothers.

Bruce feels like the bed is pulled out from under him.

_Gee.. You are so literal with your idioms and phrases._

Was there a ground under him because Bruce can’t feel it. He’s not steady.

He feels a form of anger because his children are destroying the house there. They are indulging in these… these activities which could be harmful for all of them involved. He wants to call them or better storm to the place and-

_Deep breaths, Dad. Deep breaths._

_Don’t let the anger get the best of you._

_Backtrack a bit and try to remember what you thought about the fictional parent in the story._

He tries and remembers He had said:

"Poor parental guardian. I don't know how they would react whenever they return. But seriously, why did they leave all the kids back at home in the first place? Why not be a good parent and either stay with them or take all of the kids with them wherever they have gone themselves.” 

_Yes. But also what you said afterwards. When you read about them fearing their guardian returning because they would be angry with all of them. And how they were also missing and longing for them returning._

He had said:

“Granted the children have been doing some pranking and may have messed with one or two walls of the house, all of them are innocent children. Such innocent, cute kids and balls of sunshine. Their guardian must be a heartless man devoid of any emotions if he’s going to punish children for some pranks done out of boredom. Besides, they were cruel in leaving the kids behind, in the first place. _I mean who does that?”_

  
  


Now, Bruce feels trapped by his own words. But he also feels bad. He didn’t actually want to leave them behind. He wasn’t really interested in attending the conference either. He had to because Lucious had insisted and he had already been ignoring many of the company’s meetings because of vigilante work. Even if he had somehow been able to bring his children with him, they would have been so bored here. Not to mention, the whole work here is so draining.

But Bruce agrees with what he had said earlier. His children are really innocent kids. He’s really a bad father, isn’t he? Heartless to leave them behind.

He should have told them about the trip in more words than only saying, “he needed to leave”, “see you in a week and sorry can’t take any of you with me.” “Dick, watch after them. No, Tim, you are not coming.”

Maybe he should have told them that he hadn’t wanted to leave them behind. Maybe he should have told them that he had also been wanting to stay with them as much as they wished that he stayed with him. Maybe he shouldn’t have ordered Dick to watch them until he returns and left without another word, when he knew that Dick already had a job and was injured. Besides, he himself is a kid too.

_He’s twenty-two years old._

Still. He’s a kid. His kid. No sir. Bruce would not accept any criticism on this.

He should have communicated effectively. Instead, he had left in a rush. He had woken up only 45 minutes before the flight. And had to leave in a hurry.

Bruce thinks about what to do and comes to a decision.

He will tell them, when he calls them, that he’s missing them and didn’t mean to leave like that.

He will not be angry and neither show any anger to them. He would spend a couple of days with them. And try to take them with him somewhere for a vacation after that.

  
  


_Wonder how Alfred would react_

He only hopes that Alfred is lenient with him, when he returns from England, and doesn’t kill Bruce for the destruction of the manor by his disappointing stares and feeding him cucumber sandwiches for all the meal times in the day.

_Aren’t those sandwiches your favourite though as Alfred insists they are?_

Bruce groans and changes his side.

_Of course, Old Man._

**Author's Note:**

> What do you think?
> 
> Kudos and comments are welcome and appreciated.
> 
> I am geminibabyhere on Tumblr if you want to follow, ask questions or say hi.


End file.
